Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/109

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The simple two-light geometrical window at the east end with the mullions delicately enriched outside and in, form a marked contrast to the rich but heavy Decorated work of the four-light west window. At the east end the window is subordinated to the whole design. At the west end the windows are the predominant feature of the building, and nowhere can this period of architecture be better studied. The roof spans both nave and aisles, as at Great Cotes, near Grimsby, so though the nave is big and high it has no clerestory. The tower arches are very low. The font is a very good one of the period, with diaper work and ball-flower.

We have dwelt at some length on Sleaford and its immediate neighbourhood, and not without cause, for there are few places in England or elsewhere in which so many quite first-rate churches are gathered within less than a six-mile square. They are all near the road from Sleaford to Boston, on which, after leaving Heckington, nothing noticeable is met with for seven miles, till Swineshead is reached, and nothing after that till Boston.

The north-eastern road from Sleaford to Horncastle passes over a flat and dull country to Billinghay and Tattershall, and thence by the interesting little churches of Haltham and Roughton (pronounced Rooton) to Horncastle. The road near Billinghay runs by the side of the Old Carr Dyke, which is a picturesque feature in a very Dutch-looking landscape.

This road crosses the Dyke near North Kyme, where there is a small Roman camp. The Normans have left their mark in the name of "Vacherie House" and Bœuferie Bridge, close to which is "Decoy House," and two miles to the south is the isolated village of South Kyme. Here is the keep of a thirteenth century castle, which is nearly eighty feet high, a square tower with small loophole windows. The lower room vaulted and showing the arms of the Umfraville family, to whom the property passed in the fifteenth century from the Kymes by marriage, and soon afterwards to the Talboys family, and, in 1530, to Sir Edward Dymoke of Scrivelsby, whose descendants resided there till 1700. The castle was pulled down about 1725, after which the Duke of Newcastle bought the estate and sold it twenty years later to Mr. Abraham Hume. The existing tower communicated from the first floor with the rest of the castle. The upper floors are now gone.

Close by was a priory for Austin canons, founded by Philip